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MonthAugust 2014

This is how I sing compare to last two years ago recording of Italian Arias Caro Mio Ben Classical vocal. Seems like not much improvement like a minute of heaven is ten plus years learn practising on earth. I have no goal of going exam or performance to earn a bit income soon or now not like piano. Projection using whole body was not done at my flat to sing louder.

Find out that my old VPS is performing faster to do some task like video conversion using ffmpeg. my old VPS I had buy 3 additional cpu core made up to 4 core to use in total to do video conversion for Intel CPU sandy bridge Xeon 3.3Ghz E3-1230 detected on 4GB physical RAM allocated 150GB on raid-10 hard disk is 20% more faster just now at 2pm compare to Intel ATOM 8 core all used 2.4Ghz C2758 CPU with pure SSD Intel 120GB 530 model and 8GB RAM DDR ECC installed.

I had updated my video on my piano playing in HD format, the size different of 1MB for audio bitrate different of 56Kilobits of Stereo 44Hz and now 192Kilobit 5.1 channel 48Hz. The conversion was done if US timing is after midnight to 1am maybe less people using the VPS server compare to I one person using Dedicated Atom server. If peak hour will the VPS server be slower than ATOM dedicated I not sure yet.

Today is my birthday 07 Aug, I after work went out with a friend who I know her 3 months ago to watch a movie. This is the six outing I with her, 3 outing are movie at weekday evening, 2 dinners are weekday evening and one Saturday afternoon to evening went to see garden by the bay tourist attraction. She is a Singaporean Chinese a few months younger than me height is a bit shorter like 163cm as I am 172cm. Maybe she work a few years earn a bit more got went overseas full time studies in computer sciences bachelor for 1.5 years from poly graduated. She is not a christian so she visit temple a few times in a year as her family does not worship pray at home like mine family do everyday as in my family I am only Christian. Got ask her to come church instead to visit but all the six outing none are in church. She work in project management earn a bit more than me as I do not know her monthly pay exact but far away from my both elder sisters earning now.

I going to move from a flat of 4S 84 Square meter to 4A 104 Square meter, the new house is common landing so got two lift as mine is a bit lower single lift maybe new house neighbor better. It is just two blocks away and we may get keys next month middle or end of Sept 2014 and in two months time after I have to miss this old flat to move to this flat. It is a resale flat from open market since 1984 build. It is my eldest sister who own it to brought it single name at age 37 four years older than me as she work over 17 years some CPF saving. So evaluation of S$395K I think she get it at S$389K should be final as we got ask the lowest of S$383K below evaluation from seller still at start of last month signed and HDB loan approved maybe now.

So this old flat belong to both of my parents name. But at end Dec 2001, we started moving in so we cannot sell right now. The reason is there are new regulation to sell house. As both of my parents are reaching 55 years old and above which need CPF to maintain at least 155K, and they are second time buying a house just sell it there will be stamp fee of 50K, plus a loan paid half now if took 25 years to pay with interest for HDB loan, so both my parents now both mum 60 and father 62 years old is empty nearly for CPF saving currently I think so. So this old house cannot get back any money for at least a few years or little monthly if deduct current servicing HDB loan, so they want to rent the whole flat out if left my father alone want to come to this new flat. As my eldest sister is working in a office near home about ten minutes walk, she is a manager had many Malaysian colleague in very long waiting list now to rent this old whole flat belong to both parents at offer price of S$2.3K monthly exclude all bills and expenses such as water and electricity.

I still working in this job over 5 months, end of next week I going to receive my six month pay which is out every middle of the month. Still good and relax as no need to work late no pay and report early to work for five days office hour.

SINGAPORE: Church monies to the tune of S$4.79 million were used to meet expenses related to Sun Ho’s music albums, and this was something the church leaders had tried to hide, said the prosecution in the trial of City Harvest Church leaders on Tuesday (Aug 5).

Ms Ho is the wife of City Harvest Church founder Kong Hee – one of six church leaders accused of using church money to buy sham bonds in order to fund her secular pop music career. One of the companies the church invested in was Xtron, Ms Ho’s artiste management firm.

The prosecution said the church leaders wanted to use the Xtron bond proceeds to cover up the fact that they had already used up the church’s advance rental monies to pay for Ms Ho’s album-related expenses. This was not in the bond subscription agreement.

An email showed the church’s former finance manager Serina Wee suggesting that the cost of paying back the rental monies be hidden under a travelling and salary cost in the use of proceeds clause in the agreement.

The prosecution has charged that payments between the church and Xtron was essentially moving money from one pocket to another. Its case is that the bonds were merely a device to funnel money from the church’s building fund into Xtron to be used for the church’s Crossover Project. Fronted by Ms Ho, the project was the church’s way of evangelising through pop music.

“The idea of using Xtron bonds was so it could be presented as an investment, and hide the fact that you were using building fund monies to fund Sun’s career,” said Lead Prosecutor Mavis Chionh, adding that there were telling signs that the bond investments were not genuine. For example, the church did not carry out due diligence on Xtron before subscribing to the bonds.

Money that went to Xtron was largely used to fund the church’s Crossover Project. In cross-examining former church board member John Lam, the prosecution pointed out that there was no basis for Xtron’s huge projected sales of Ms Ho’s then-delayed US album.

Xtron had projected album sales of S$16 million in 2011, and S$23 million in 2012. Ms Chionh pointed out that given there was neither a distribution contract nor an album contract, the figures were either “false, or at very best, purely speculative”.

Lam said it was his belief in Kong Hee’s ability to make the Crossover Project a success which led to him supporting the church’s investment into the Xtron bonds, despite knowing that Xtron was not a profitable company, and that Sun Ho’s music albums were losing money. This led the prosecutor to call his story an “incredible invention.”

These and other details surfaced as the prosecution sought to highlight inconsistencies in the testimony of ex-church board member John Lam, who cited Ms Ho’s success as a reason CHC should invest in bonds issued by her artiste management company.

SINGAPORE: Sun Ho was not the successful singer City Harvest Church had made her out to be. Evidence showed the church spent about half a million dollars to buy her unsold Mandarin CDs.

The profitability of her artiste management company Xtron was also questioned, as the trial involving the church’s leader Kong Hee and his five deputies resumed on Monday (Aug 4).

The six church leaders are accused of misusing millions of church funds to buy sham bonds to bankroll Sun Ho’s music career.

She had been touted as a big commercial success, but lead prosecutor Mavis Chionh said the financial statements told a different story. In 2004, City Harvest Church spent about half a million dollars to buy her unsold (Mandarin) CDs – numbering at least 32,000 copies – to give away to overseas ministries and overseas churches.

These details surfaced as the prosecution sought to highlight inconsistencies in former church board member John Lam’s evidence. He had cited Ms Ho’s success as a reason the church should invest in bonds issued by Xtron – her artiste management company.

The Prosecutor had strong words for Lam. She called his evidence incredible, and a lie, and said he was desperate to find an explanation as to why he had gone along with a plan to let the church sink millions of dollars into what were essentially junk bonds.

Lam pointed out that junk bonds were not necessarily bad bonds, and added that he had believed that Sun’s US album sales would be good enough to cover the obligations of the bond. But the prosecution said that as a former director of Xtron, Lam would have known it was not a profitable company.

For example, its only asset was a laptop, with all other assets loaned by the church. It did not even have the budget to pay for a S$46,000 freight services bill.

The prosecution also drove home the point that Xtron was not the independent entity it had been made out to be. For one, Lam and his fellow accused Chew Eng Han had agreed to stamps of their signatures being made, to be used on Xtron invoices. Ms Chionh said the two were “happy to rubber stamp decisions”, knowing they were made by Kong and the church.

It was also heard that the bulk of Xtron’s funding came from the church members. For example, Indonesian businessman Wahju Hanafi’s donations to the Church Building Fund were refunded to him, and channelled to Xtron. The building fund pledges and tithes of some other members including Lam were also diverted to Xtron. The trial continues.